"From a divine son will rise a human race and a hero will dominate the world and his fame will spread over the earth." These words from a 7th century Tibetan hymn suggest how deep and universal is the anticipation for one among us who will come and lead us beyond ourselves in order that we may at last find ourselves. This one we await will be both familiar and a stranger.

John the Baptist was a wild man. He felt drawn to the wilderness. He was himself there. “I am a voice crying in the wilderness.’ It was where he felt at home, with his locusts and wild honey, rather than in the best restaurants and hotels.

In the course of his preaching he said, ‘Someone is following me, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’ (Mk 1:8)

Stay Awake. This is the teaching of Jesus in the gospel for the first Sunday of Advent – the preparation time for Christmas.

I have been travelling in S America and Asia in the past few weeks and have seen the various effects of the global financial crisis. In retrospect it’s obvious that we slept-walked into the crisis, allowing the oscillation between greed and fear that controls the market place to induce a dangerous dream state.